At first it seemed like it was going to be a light hearted mystery, but when the characters started revealing their true selves, it turned dark and nasty, I liked the twists and turns. I wasn't too bothered by the ending, another sign of the times when movies were changing.

I was able to catch this film in its entirety when it aired Wednesday night, and it was pretty good! The supporting cast was excellent, and the dialog was fairly racy compared to films that came before it. The one flaw I'd cite was the film's ending...a cliffhanger? Really?

Essential: STRANGE INTRUDER (1956)
This is the story of Paul Quentin (Edmund Purdom), a Korean war vet attempting to readjust to civilian society. He is discharged from the army and decides to visit the family of a pal that died in a prisoner of war camp. The pal, a guy named Adrian Carmichael (Donald Murphy), had learned that wife Alice (Ida Lupino) was cheating on him. Since Adrian was dying, he asked Paul to make sure his kids were looked after, but Adrian did not want any other man to raise them.
As the story gets underway, Paul is on a mission of sorts. He has no family of his own, and he's decided to look up the Carmichaels. He's doing this because of the promise he made to Adrian, but also because he feels empowered to right a few wrongs. This may not seem too strange at first, but he'll be intruding on the Carmichaels' way of life and that may not be good.
After he arrives on the Carmichaels' doorstep, Paul gets to know Adrian's widow. It's obvious Alice still feels bad about having committed adultery while her late husband was serving in Korea. She has broken it off with the other man, but is now being blackmailed.
Meanwhile, Paul gets acquainted with Adrian's children. And during his time with them, he decides that Alice is not decent and concocts a plan to spare them a life with such a mother. He's going to kill the children to save them and ensure that they're not raised by anyone else. Yes, it's that unconventional a story. Purdom is no great shakes as an actor, but director Irving Rapper and costar Lupino (herself a director) each guide Purdom to a credible performance.
The film also benefits from strong supporting work by Ann Harding in her last big screen role as Alice's mother-in-law. She is the one who starts to realize the danger they all now face. Meanwhile, Jacques Bergerac is on hand as Howard Gray, the cad that's blackmailing Alice. But it's really Rapper's sharp compositions that make this a compelling melodrama to watch. A lot happens in this film, both within the characters, and around them.
This is conveyed by the intelligent way that Rapper stages and frames the action. In particular, there is one shot where Paul goes to open an old grandfather clock to set the time, and as he pulls back the mirror-like glass panel, we see multiple images of his face reflected. Rapper shoots it through the hollowed out insides of the clock-- and we get a glimpse of how Paul ticks, literally and figuratively.
There are also scenes where Paul plays the piano and Alice hovers around him, trying to find out from him if her husband knew about her infidelity. They are both at cross-purposes. The music stops, and the focus goes back to the children and how Paul must "save" them.
The scene in the barn is the most intense. This is where Paul wrestles with his own demons about what to do to help the children. At one point, he decides to drown them. They are looking at their reflections in some water, and he puts his hands on the back their necks to submerge their faces all the way. It's a shocking scene, especially for 1956.
Somehow, miraculously, there is a happy ending. And the ending is certainly plausible, if unexpected. Paul has not been able to bring himself to kill the children. And now, he has decided to go to a V.A. hospital to get psychological treatment. STRANGE INTRUDER is a smoothly played film, with Lupino's flawless performance at the center of it all. It stays with the viewer a long time afterward, and that's what classic films do.

I'm watching it and while I appreciate the ingenious tactics of Bluto and Popeye's ability to carry his useless team, isn't taking the football before the other team can hike, passing it to yourself and scoring a touchdown blatantly cheating?

Harper (1966) 8/10
Paul Newman plays the title role of a private eye searching for a rich woman's (Lauren Bacall) husband.
The story is not the big draw in this film, it is the incredible supporting cast. Bacall makes the most her small role as the wife who is not very upset about her husband's disappearance. Robert Wagner is a jet setter who seems giddy about helping out this private eye. Julie Harris is a junkie jazz singer. Shelley Winters is hilarious as a blowsy, drunken former starlet. Strother Martin shows up as weird guru, just one year before he roughs up Newman in "Cool Hand Luke". Janet Leigh is Newman's estranged wife.
The film also takes advantage of the new permissiveness in film in regard to language and violence. It came out the same year as "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?". Ironically Arthur Hill, who appears here as Newman's lawyer pal, played the part of George in the original Broadway play of "Virginia Woolf." Some of the violence is still pretty disturbing today.

They never used to "get lost." If DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK, JESSE JAMES, MIDNIGHT and DESTRY RIDES AGAIN were MGM films in the Turner library, TCM would be playing the heck out of them. The programmers know these are good classic films from 1939.
I still think they could remove JAMAICA INN from this lineup and substitute it with something better.

I didn't see those titles on Amazon Prime when I went through the offerings yesterday. There are a few MGM and Warner Brothers items, but that's because they're in the public domain (like MR. IMPERIUM and GO FOR BROKE!). The ones you mentioned are no longer offered, however that doesn't mean they won't be re-added later.
As I discussed with another poster, there are a lot of Columbia classics on Amazon Prime now. And there are still a fair number of Paramount classics too.

Lugosi was originally supposed play the part of the doctor and Karloff was going to play the professor later played by Stanley Ridges. Karloff did not want to tackle the dual role so he was given the the doctor role, Lugosi was not suitable for the professor part so he was stuck with this minor role of a gangster. The publicity department thought up a scheme where Lugosi would be hypnotized for his death scene, supposedly making him feel like he is really suffocating. He screams and cries a bit in the scene but I'm pretty sure it was all a set up.